OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

[YellowKing]

I want to try the Serpentor expansion but I can't even beat the damn base game of G.I. Joe. I'm aware that knowing is half the battle, but apparently I need some assistance with the other 50%.

[Zarathud]

Is the Serpentor expansion where there’s the rule COBRA can’t hit the broad side of a barn? While standing in it?

[Blackhawk]

Is the Serpentor expansion where there’s the rule COBRA can’t hit the broad side of a barn? While standing in it?

Could the Joes?

[Zarathud]

I remember the Joes would hit the barn, and then all the COBRAs would safely escape then retreat. The Joes could also shoot robots.

[YellowKing]

I had one of the most crazy group wins of all time last night.

We were playing THE RECKONERS: STEELSLAYER expansion with the Limelight boss on the hardest city. Though we were playing on easy difficulty, we had tried (and failed) to beat this boss on 3 previous attempts.

We are on the last round of the game, as we only have 2 population left and hitting 0 means we lose. So we can't possibly survive anothe round. The boss still has 26 HP left. So even if we abandon everything and go all in on the boss, we still have to come up with 26 points of damage. Freaking impossible. We decided to just play it out and see how close we could get just to save some scrap of dignity.

Terry only rolls 3 damage, but he's got an item that turns one die into any symbol so he uses that to bump his damage to 4.

Boss is at 22

Jay rolls 3 damage, but he has a card that doubles one symbol so he's at 4. Then uses his grenade launcher item for an additional 2.

Boss is at 16

I roll an incredible 7 damage, which I had never come close to doing in any previous game. 7 straight damage.

Boss is at 9

Duane only rolls 2 damage. But he has 2 Demolition charges left for 5 more damage.

Boss is at 2.

We all groan as we realize we missed him by only 2 HP. We're laughing about yet another near miss when Duane suddenly realizes he has 2 Plan tokens (wildcards) available. 2 more damage. WE WIN. The table erupts in cheers of victory.

Craziness - lack of one item, or one missed die roll and it would have become another in our long string of failures. Sometimes the Gaming Gods do smile upon you.

[Isgrimnur]

Chit-punching and organizing for Next War:Korea.

2”x2” bags per Corps.

Hey, I finally finished! I'm typing up an OOB in a Google doc to throw on BGG. Maybe in another couple of years, I'll take it back out so I can actually play a game.

[AWS260]

We finally convinced my son that he should try Innovation, and he had a really good time with it. Thank goodness, because it's one of my favorite games. The boy crushed us in the first game, spinning up a very effective influence engine, and I won the second thanks to one of the instant-win conditions found in the 10th age deck.

Then we decided that he should learn UNO, so we pulled that off the shelf for the first time in a very, very long time. I had forgotten that in our deck, the winner signs and dates the winning card. It was a very nice surprise to see a bunch of signatures from 2003, the year my wife and I met.

[baelthazar]

I played a game of Twilight Inscription solo this weekend. Normally, I haven't been drawn by Roll n' Writes (the last one I played was Roll through the Ages) but this one being Twilight Imperium themed drew me in. The components are of high quality, the art is from TI, so that is great for me, and the theme - although a veneer - makes the game interesting. The solo game was quick enough to be a single sitting game and was consistently engaging, despite not having an actual opponent. In fact, I think I would prefer solo to multiplay here, as basically you would just be sitting around marking boards without much interaction.

Overall, it was great fun and I can see myself pulling it out for a quick fix often. I put it on the same weight level as Final Girl (and there are some similarities in that you choose an action and then your level of success is based on dice management).

[YellowKing]

We played two sessions of the E.T the Extraterrestrial: Light Years From Home board game last night, once on standard and once on hard difficulty, four players.

It's a bit of an odd game, because it's quite a bit more challenging than the theme would imply. Terry and I had experience with it from GenCon, however, so our knowledge of the strategy helped us pull off two victories even at the higher player count.

While the primary mechanic is simple pick-up-and-deliver, there's a lot of strategy in thinking ahead of how enemy agents might move so that you're not placing yourself in danger at the end of a turn.

Who is this game made for? Hard to say. The casual mom who picks this up in Target because it's a cute E.T. game will probably never get past the rulebook, as there's quite a bit going on for this level of game. On the other hand, the theme (and strategy, once you figure it out) makes it a bit light for experienced gamers.

Still, it's one I'll probably pick up during a Target sale since it's so thematically well done. Everything from the artwork to the gameplay really pays homage to the movie, and in that respect I think it deserves a place on the shelf even if it's good-not-great.

[coopasonic]

I stumbled on actualol on youtube, I am not even sure how, but having not paid any attention to the board game world other than posts here for the past few years (thanks covid), he opened my eyes to a bunch of games I wasn't aware that really look interesting and now I am even more interested in going to BGG.CON this year, despite my enormous misgivings about attending such an event.

Main one on my list is Sniper Elite: The Board Game - hidden movement game that is more action oriented than the ones I typically play. But there are others I am curious about, like getting my wife to play Space Base is kind of tough, but I might be able to sucker her into My Farm Shop.

[Daveman]

I only got into Spirit Island a few months ago (love it, have most of the expansions) but a new, "beginner edition" titled Horizons of Spirit Island is in stock at Target now (where it will remain a Target exclusive for some time).

Relevant news for fans of Spirit Island is that it has 5 new Spirits, which compares favorably to their expansions of about the same price. This new game itself comes with a fixed double sided board (one for 2p, the other 3p) and cardboard tokens in place of the plastic and wooden bits of the original game. It doesn't have any of the nation invader rules and just uses the basic Blight mechanic (no healthy/blighted Island cards). Yet for all that it's still a pretty hefty intro to the game and a nice production for $30.

Personally, I never cared for the plastic bits in this game so the cardboard stuff is an unexpected upgrade to me.

[coopasonic]

Kind of off topic, but Hive is 65% off on Steam if anyone finds those fantastic tiles annoying and wanted a digital version.

[Fishbelly]

I only got into Spirit Island a few months ago (love it, have most of the expansions) but a new, "beginner edition" titled Horizons of Spirit Island is in stock at Target now (where it will remain a Target exclusive for some time).

Relevant news for fans of Spirit Island is that it has 5 new Spirits, which compares favorably to their expansions of about the same price. This new game itself comes with a fixed double sided board (one for 2p, the other 3p) and cardboard tokens in place of the plastic and wooden bits of the original game. It doesn't have any of the nation invader rules and just uses the basic Blight mechanic (no healthy/blighted Island cards). Yet for all that it's still a pretty hefty intro to the game and a nice production for $30.

Personally, I never cared for the plastic bits in this game so the cardboard stuff is an unexpected upgrade to me.

Thanks for this. I've always wanted to give Spirit Island a try but have never been able to pull the trigger. This price point is super attractive--I might need to pick up a copy this weekend.

[AWS260]

To gear up for my first game of John Company this weekend, I played a three-handed game solo last night. The conclusion: I am not good at running a quasigovernmental imperialist commercial enterprise. The company collapsed at the end of round three. It turns out that building a large army and navy while neglecting actual income is a bad business strategy.

[hepcat]

I got my copy of John Company yesterday and broke it down and organized it last night. I'm a little annoyed that they tell you to use the two trays to store tokens, then show you where the tokens are stored in said trays...but they don't include lids for those trays. So essentially I either have to bag them up after every game, wrap those trays in cellophane or just don't use them.

I'm going to try to read through the rules over a few beers tomorrow after work. Saturday I'm doing a three player game day of Chronicles of Drunagor though.

[AWS260]

I got my copy of John Company yesterday and broke it down and organized it last night. I'm a little annoyed that they tell you to use the two trays to store tokens, then show you where the tokens are stored in said trays...but they don't include lids for those trays. So essentially I either have to bag them up after every game, wrap those trays in cellophane or just don't use them.

I put the small trays on top of the big tray, and then the lid on top of those. Seems to be working so far.

My other organizational protip is to keep the mini-cards for each family bagged up with the rest of their components. Speeds set-up and keeps the mini-cards from overflowing their slot in the bottom tray.

[hepcat]

I tried it with the game board on top of the smaller trays, but tokens still got scattered in the box when I moved it. I'll try your suggestions though. Thanks.

[Skinypupy]

I finally broke down and picked up Marvel Champions this morning. It's been on my "maybe" list for ages, mostly because I thought the gameplay looks really neat but I'm not crazy about the Marvel theme (I would kill for a Star Wars version). Plus, I still regret my purchase of the LotR LCG and was afraid it might fall down the same incomprehensible hole.

Played my first two games today (Spiderman then Captain Marvel vs. Rhino) and came away pretty impressed. It flowed well, I was able to pick up on the strategy nuances right away, and - most importantly - the text on the cards wasn't so tiny that I couldn't read it (an all-to-common FF game bugaboo). First impressions are good, and I'm looking forward to giving it a few more spins.

[Smoove_B]

One of my favorites. I just played through the Rhino scenario with all the starter characters last month, solo fighting one right after the other. They all really feel different, which is awesome. I just picked up the X-Men set but haven't had a chance to give it a whirl. It's a great, great game - really feels like you're playing a comic book.

[Blackhawk]

Today was my first board game day almost three years (since COVID started.) We played the Fallout board game, at the request of our guest who is a big Fallout fan (despite never having played a single one of the games.) I'd played the base game a few years ago, and it was... so-so at best. It had a poor victory mechanic that made it feel like you'd play for an hour, then everybody would roll a d20 and the high number won. It was that random and arbitrary, and victory usually came by accident.

This time I played it with both expansions (New California, which adds new content, and Atomic Bonds which converts it to a cooperative/solo game.) By reputation, the expansions were supposed to fix what was wrong with the game and turn it into a good title.

We actually ended up having quite a lot of fun, and (like a good game should), it came down to the wire. We ended up winning with four turns left before we'd have drawn the card that caused us to lose after probably 35-40 rounds. And winning that late by pulling out all the stops and having the strategies we agreed to at the beginning pay off right at the end felt good, especially for a first group run (I played it once solo last night to work out the bugs and learn the system before we were to play together.)

So, yeah - thumbs up for Fallout the board game with expansions, up from a thumbs down for the base game.

[Skinypupy]

One of my favorites. I just played through the Rhino scenario with all the starter characters last month, solo fighting one right after the other. They all really feel different, which is awesome. I just picked up the X-Men set but haven't had a chance to give it a whirl. It's a great, great game - really feels like you're playing a comic book.

Whelp, certain lucky/unlucky draws can make these games really swingy and really quick. First couple games took about 45 minutes each. Granted, I was still learning the ropes, but I figured it out pretty quick. Just played a third game (Capt Marvel vs. Rhino) that was over in less 15 minutes.

Knocked out Rhino's first form in my first turn. Had him on the ropes at the end of my third turn with a perfect setup of two hard hits that would take him down in the next round. I thought "wow, I planned this one perfectly...too easy!"

He then drew the Nemesis add, which dropped in a side scheme that added an extra encounter (so he was now drawing three). His three encounter cards ended up being:
1. One add-on that increased his damage by three
2. Second add-on that increased damage by another three (all this on top of his base damage of 3 and minion damage of 3)
3. Armor that blocked 5 damage.

So now my perfectly planned attack could now no longer take him down like I had planned (due to the armor) and he would either win via scheme or kill me on his turn as I had no mitigation.

Thought I had a 99% chance for an easy win after the first turn, and it completely flipped into a wipeout loss in about 10 minutes. Fun game.

[Zarathud]

Played Flamecraft with my daughters and two friends. None of them have much experience with board games, but they loved the dragon artisan artwork. The kickstarter version adds all the cuteness.

It's a cute worker placement game -- go to a shop and either (1) get stuff and interact with a single dragon worker, or (2) spend stuff to boost the shop and interact will all the dragon workers. The theme is very friendly. You visit a shop the shopkeepers give you gifts and if there's another player then you have to give them a gift before coming into the shop. The game translates into heart VPs + coins one you run through the dragon workers or the enchantments.

The kids were able to be competitive. My favorite combo -- the visitor who ended up with Wesley and Buttercup "fancy" dragons but had never watched the Princess Bride. It will hit the table again, but it was a bit long with 5 noob players. Next time should play faster with only 3-4 who played before.

[Smoove_B]

Thought I had a 99% chance for an easy win after the first turn, and it completely flipped into a wipeout loss in about 10 minutes. Fun game.

Yes, that can happen. More than other games, I had to learn to really use my allies as sacrificial "shields" and to know how to creatively juggle between your hero form and your alter-ego (to avoid attacks). For example, having someone like Bobbi (Mockingbird) put into play that can target Rhino and stop him from making an ridiculous attack (by stunning him), basically giving you a free round can sometimes make a huge difference. There's a lot of little tricks like that and each character has a few unique special things they can do that usually help.

[EzeKieL]

I made a new song! This time about Wonderland's War

Spoiler:

[YellowKing]

Last night we brought TINDAYA to the table. This has been described as "Robinson Crusoe meets Spirit Island" and that's not a terrible description. It certainly contains elements of both games.

However, there is a LOT going on here. We spent a full two hours just with set up and going through the rule book. The game is extremely symbol-heavy, and though the rulebook is fine, it's incredibly dense with information. Even the player aid is not just a card, it's a 4-page leaflet!

In the game each player represents a tribe living on a set of islands. You're trying to appease two gods (land and water), and survive three eras of horrible cataclysms that are coming your way. To do this, you'll have to generate resources to offer to the gods while simultaneously feeding your tribe and attempting to mitigate the unstoppable catastrophes coming at the end of the round.

We're all still a bit unsure about strategy at this point, but in general you need to be gathering resources to help build inventions and learn new trades, which will in turn give you more action cubes to use in future turns. The tricky part is that you're limited on actions, and, as with all good cooperative games, rarely have enough of them to do all the things you need to do. There's also a mechanism where you can offer fire to seers who will allow you understand what cataclysms will happen and where, allowing you to plan for the next era.

Cataclysms are nasty and take the form of tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, pirate invasions, and the gods acting directly on the islands. This can lead to major changes in the map as islands sink, volcanos create new islands, and settlements get wiped out.

We're still midway through our first game, so I don't have any final thoughts on it yet. However, I will say it offers a very rich and crunchy strategy experience for those who enjoyed Robinson Crusoe/Spirit Island. The idea of knowing exactly what's coming but being powerless to really stop it makes for some tense decision-making.

[hepcat]

I am intrigued...and Smoove's earlier linked to game store has the deluxe edition in stock for 79 bucks. As a big fan of Robinson Crusoe, I'll be awaiting your final thoughts.

[Fardaza]

Does it have a solo mode?

[Isgrimnur]

https://tesera.ru/images/items/1939902/ ... lebook.pdf

[hepcat]

Uh oh, the Issiebot has just revealed that it’s based in Russia.

[Skinypupy]

I picked up Star Wars: The Clone Wars yesterday, which is the SW-themed version of Pandemic. I never really got into Pandemic (because the theme did absolutely nothing for me), but have really enjoyed both the World of Warcraft and Star Wars versions. I think I like this SW one slightly better because during solo play, you're actually playing with two entirely separate characters (in the WoW version, you have one hand of cards for all three heroes). This one seems to flow much better, and I like using cards as health instead of a basic HP tracker. Definitely a thumbs up so far.

I also managed to snag a version that included a "Promo Pack" of Battle Droids. They're a tan color (so they look closer to the actual droids from the film) and are in a bunch of different poses, a la little green army men. They're neat.

[baelthazar]

I picked up Star Wars: The Clone Wars yesterday, which is the SW-themed version of Pandemic. I never really got into Pandemic (because the theme did absolutely nothing for me), but have really enjoyed both the World of Warcraft and Star Wars versions. I think I like this SW one slightly better because during solo play, you're actually playing with two entirely separate characters (in the WoW version, you have one hand of cards for all three heroes). This one seems to flow much better, and I like using cards as health instead of a basic HP tracker. Definitely a thumbs up so far.

I also managed to snag a version that included a "Promo Pack" of Battle Droids. They're a tan color (so they look closer to the actual droids from the film) and are in a bunch of different poses, a la little green army men. They're neat.

What are the cubes? Given this is an Anakin simulator, that could be really dark.

[Skinypupy]

I picked up Star Wars: The Clone Wars yesterday, which is the SW-themed version of Pandemic. I never really got into Pandemic (because the theme did absolutely nothing for me), but have really enjoyed both the World of Warcraft and Star Wars versions. I think I like this SW one slightly better because during solo play, you're actually playing with two entirely separate characters (in the WoW version, you have one hand of cards for all three heroes). This one seems to flow much better, and I like using cards as health instead of a basic HP tracker. Definitely a thumbs up so far.

I also managed to snag a version that included a "Promo Pack" of Battle Droids. They're a tan color (so they look closer to the actual droids from the film) and are in a bunch of different poses, a la little green army men. They're neat.

What are the cubes? Given this is an Anakin simulator, that could be really dark.

Cubes? Not sure what that means...

[baelthazar]

Pandemic uses cubes for the diseases. You go around removing cubes before they "pop." Given this is Anakin they could be... clone troopers, robots... Jedi... younglings...

[Skinypupy]

Ah. I've never actually played regular Pandemic.

You're fighting off Battle Droids and planetary blockades in this one. No youngling violence here.

[Isgrimnur]

Uh oh, the Issiebot has just revealed that it’s based in Russia.

I am Legion.

[hepcat]

ISSIENET HAS ACHIEVED SENTIENCE!

[wonderpug]

I picked up Star Wars: The Clone Wars yesterday, which is the SW-themed version of Pandemic. I never really got into Pandemic (because the theme did absolutely nothing for me), but have really enjoyed both the World of Warcraft and Star Wars versions. I think I like this SW one slightly better because during solo play, you're actually playing with two entirely separate characters (in the WoW version, you have one hand of cards for all three heroes). This one seems to flow much better, and I like using cards as health instead of a basic HP tracker. Definitely a thumbs up so far.

I also managed to snag a version that included a "Promo Pack" of Battle Droids. They're a tan color (so they look closer to the actual droids from the film) and are in a bunch of different poses, a la little green army men. They're neat.

What are the cubes? Given this is an Anakin simulator, that could be really dark.

Little mini battle droids instead of cubes, trade federation ships for “blockades” which take the place of outbreaks.

[LordMortis]

We played some Great Western Trail last weekend. We're still exploring the game but do you think the game is generally very favorable to the first player, who essentially gets to choose the first engineer/cattle hand/architect? We're in agreement but again we're still exploring the game and just hoping we have our blinders up. We're trying to figure out how much play we can get out of the game. There's lots to like but there is still a lot potential critique that will come with more play.

[wonderpug]

We played some Great Western Trail last weekend. We're still exploring the game but do you think the game is generally very favorable to the first player, who essentially gets to choose the first engineer/cattle hand/architect? We're in agreement but again we're still exploring the game and just hoping we have our blinders up. We're trying to figure out how much play we can get out of the game. There's lots to like but there is still a lot potential critique that will come with more play.

Did you start every player from the start of the trail? It's easy to miss, but every player can choose any neutral building tile to start from.

[LordMortis]

We played some Great Western Trail last weekend. We're still exploring the game but do you think the game is generally very favorable to the first player, who essentially gets to choose the first engineer/cattle hand/architect? We're in agreement but again we're still exploring the game and just hoping we have our blinders up. We're trying to figure out how much play we can get out of the game. There's lots to like but there is still a lot potential critique that will come with more play.

Did you start every player from the start of the trail? It's easy to miss, but every player can choose any neutral building tile to start from.

Really? Thank you for saying this. This is important if you want look at the bad start for guys and want to add new one. Just start at the end. Thanks. I haven't read the rules. I suppose it's time I find them and read them myself.

Edit: Looks like we have first edition and there might be differences between 1st and 2nd. We have outlaws instead of TeePees. And the setup had more cows for later players. I am posing that we might want to play with 2nd edition rules even if some of the buildings may be different. When I get time and notion I may search for differences between 1st and 2nd edition. The shame is the guy who bought the game didn't buy it that long ago and probably got sold the 1st edition out of ignorance.